Wohoo! There's hope for energy from hot rocks...

...and Australia has absolutely loads of them.

Although this article is a bit presumptuous in saying that they'll have their power plant operational by March when they haven't got their proof of concept plant working, it's still very exiting. If all goes well it'll be good for the planet and the riskier portion of my share portfolio.

Prostitution - some things to disagree with the radical feminists about.

I read with interest the article on the global sex industry in The Age today, mainly because of the title "The Vagina Dialogues" which I mistook for "The Vagina Monologues" and I was kind of hoping they'd come to Melbourne so that I could see them (finally). Anyway, not monologues, not even dialogues really, just a catchy headline - The Age has outdone itself today in that respect, but I might post about that later...

British feminist Sheila Jeffreys claims that us "neo-liberalists" view prostitution as simply a form of work (that'll be me), and that we should be more outraged at the buying and selling of women's bodies. I'm not sure that I'm happy with that as a blanket statement. Sure, when I hear about sex slavery I get as angry and unhappy as the next person. But I think it is a grave error to confuse sex slavery with prostitution. Also, to be blindly outraged at the buying and selling of women's bodies is dismissive of all the work done by sex workers campaigning to be recognised as a legitimate profession. Of course, in my ideal world, prostitutes are all doing the work by choice, they are well educated regarding their sexual health and how to maintain it and they work in nice places with lots of security guards and the means to summon them if they get a dud client. I know this is the reality for the minority of sex workers, but I also know that the other realities have other complications, drug addiction being a classic. If you're so drug fucked you can't hold down a job, you're desperate for more, and someone will pay you for the use of the one possession you can't lose... well....

I agree with Jeffreys that more of the money being made by the sex trade could go to the women themselves, but I feel that way about factory workers too. Big business is bad in itself, to label prostitution bad because of an association with big business is another error.

Perhaps I should reveal why I'm such a big fan of prostitution in my idealised form:

1 - Prostitution allows all kinds of people to have access to sex who otherwise couldn't or wouldn't get it.

It's obvious really, but some people need you to point out the obvious. I'm talking about people who are shunned by their partners, the disabled, the super busy or the just plain ugly. Who am I to say that these people should never have sexual intercourse simply because they cannot find a bedmate? If a person cannot walk, we find ways to help them get around, if they can't talk we find ways to get them communicating, we don't turn our backs on them reasoning that it's their tough luck and they'll just have to suffer without things the able bodied among us take for granted. Why should access to sex be any different? Are we so prudish that we cannot suffer the thought that the unfortunate might have sexual needs? In my opinion it is better that they safely pay to have those need fulfilled as the alternatives to not bear thinking about. Of course, this solution makes sex the privilege of the wealthier portion of the sexually frustrated population but that is a whole other can of worms I do not have time to address here!

2 - Prostitution keeps families intact.

Oh yes indeedy. Bear with me on this one. In this scenario, the frustrated marriage partner is not only paying a prostitute for sex, they are paying their sexual partner to go away afterward. I argue that prostitution, as long as it does not become an addiction, is a far more family friendly way of fulfilling frustrated sexual needs than cheating on your partner with someone else. This is because of the drain the cheatee can have on the family. There is the time drain where the cheater is off with the cheatee, there has to be courting and bonding before the actual sex and all of this takes time. Prostitutes take far less time by comparison. There is the emotional drain on the family where the cheater becomes emotionally distracted and distant, if one assumes there is no emotional attachment to the prostitute there is nothing to distract the cheater from the family. There is also the financial drain caused by maintaining a cheatee. Prostitutes cost money, for sure, but do they cost as much as the gifts and food, and places to sleep often entailed by an affair? Unless the cheater is a complete miser or having an affair with a rich single person the answer is probably not. And finally, lets not forget the emotional trauma often suffered by the cheatee at the hands of a cheater who refuses to leave the family. The pain of being the "secret other" is not to be underestimated. Going to a professional third party for sex may not solve the initial problem that lead the cheater to seek out extra sex in the first place, but at least it's less likely to cause any further problems.

I'm more than happy to hear from people who disagree with me. However, I will maintain that prostitution is actually a vital part of a healthy society. Particularly if that society is going to glorify unnatural modes of existence, I'm thinking here of the ideal that one partner can satisfy your every sexual need for your entire monogamous life. Sex is one of the few arenas where seeking out satisfaction outside the partnership is frowned upon in our culture. If you need other things such as books, company for exercise, conversations about antique cars or the occasional back massage it is considered ok to get them outside the relationship, but sex? Oh no, if you're not getting what you want in that area tough luck buddy, you chose your sex life when you chose your partner. This seems to me to be ridiculously exclusive and based on an ancient tradition whereby women were only allowed to have sex with their husbands so that the husbands could be sure of the paternity of their children.

Logically, if we can satisfy needs for anything other than sex outside of marriage, then we should all be signing up for life with the partner who was best in the sack. However, hardly anyone does. I didn't, and for a plethora of excellent reasons, one of which is that I'm just not that sexually driven. But if extra sex ever became a priority, you can guarantee I'll be seeking out that extra sex from a paid professional rather than going through the ugly emotional messiness of an affair. Radical feminists are wrong to tar all forms of prostitution with the same brush. Lets hope they see the light.

Bill Bailey for... something good...

I pinched this pic from Hoyden About Town. Awesome. I want one of those T-shirts.

Wow, someone has really done their homework on the Tell The Truth Coalition!

For those of you still interested in the Tell The Truth Coalition, this makes extremely interesting reading. Someone called Brian from unbelief.org has done some homework on the members including our favourite ol' Ron van Wegen.

When it comes to birth, men can be fragile creatures.

This piece in The New York Times spoke volumes to me. It's an ordinary bloke's account of his failure to cope with his daughter's early arrival on the bathroom floor.

I don't like a great deal of the sentiment, such as his expectation of how the birth would proceed:

I had been expecting the birth to occur in an orderly fashion at the hospital: the midwife and nurses in scrubs, regular reports on how many centimeters her cervix had dilated, an opportunity to hold Leslie’s hand and wipe her brow. I had wanted to be the useful partner — and the witness. When the baby arrived, I would accept her from the nurse before placing her on Leslie’s chest, basking in the tableau of mother with newborn child.

Could his vision be any more polluted by the patriarchal myth that women need to be flat on their backs surrounded by a team of experts in order to do what most of them have been doing either alone or in the company of family members ever since we became bipedal? Does he have any idea of the history behind his desire to be the first to hold the baby? (In ancient Rome the father would be given the baby in order to see if it met his approval, if it did not it was exposed or sold into slavery.) Does he have any idea how useless (and annoying) brow mopping is? (If I had a dollar for the number of times I've seen women giggle over their husband's earnest brow mopping on Mummy Bulletin Boards... If my husband had tried that he'd have been flung across the room and possibly banished.) My guess is that our author is oblivious to both the implications behind his desire to be passed the baby and his misguided utility. I can't really blame him. He's a product of western culture, particularly American culture. So, when his wife yelled that she was having the baby in the bathroom, he did what he'd been taught to do - panic and call an ambulance. The birth of his daughter without him brought home a stark reality: he wasn't needed at all, it was quite possible he'd made things worse.

I think that unless we are careful, instead of being a participant in something wonderful, men like this one can be made to feel like irrelevant spectators. For the raw truth is, they are not needed at the birth. Natural and water birth pioneer Michael Odent goes so far as to say that male partners should not be allowed at births, that they only get in the way. I half agree.

I definitely wanted my husband there for the birth of my second, but I didn't take it for granted that my partner would be there the way I did with my first. He was very deliberately included in a team of half a dozen people and prepared appropriately for the event. The poor man, who comes from a very patriarchal home, was lectured to, shown videos, read to from books, made to be my advocate when I needed one, and given very strict instructions as to the boundaries of his role. Just like most other Australian blokes, his experience of birth was limited to movie portrayals and anecdotes from older relatives so he needed an entire re-education: history, medicine, male power and the myth of control. The man stepped up to the plate like an absolute hero and ended up catching his daughter (I was on my hands and knees for that one). He'll never forget it and neither will I.

My husband was the antithesis of the helpless, panic stricken ambulance caller. He knew what he could do, what I only I could do and exactly how he could facilitate it without getting in the way. He was amazing.

However, had he displayed a reluctance to be swayed from the patriarchal medical model he'd have been excluded. It would have been horrible and heart-breaking but I would have done it. The birth was both something I had to do, yet was also something that was happening to me - it was a tug-of-war between me, my body and a baby clamouring to get out into the world. I would never risk having someone present who might disrupt the delicate relationship I needed to establish with my body to achieve a good outcome. Husbands who panic, or who encourage their wives to accept interventions to satisfy their need to feel like "something is being done", are not capable of acting in the best interest of their wives. They'd be better off in the waiting room nursing their cigars.

To summarise, any man who believes that birth should be orderly and furthermore, CONTROLLED should definitely be banned from attending births. Most of them love their wives and want to be supportve, but their panic in the face of their helplessness is not, well, helpful.

India: Abortion without the husband's knowledge is mental cruelty and grounds for divorce *sigh*

According to India's national newspaper The Hindu, having an abortion without your husband's knowledge is an act of mental cruelty toward the husband and grounds for divorce. The logic employed here is so alarming my neocortex was clamoring for a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down.

How could he be affected by abortions of which he had no knowledge????

I'm trying to think of other acts that could be performed without the spouse's knowledge that could also be construed as mental cruelty. This in itself is tricky as I've always thought of mental cruelty as something that is DONE to another person. It is an act that requires two parties, a perpetrator and a victim.

Perhaps my confusion stems from their use of the word cruelty? Good philosophers always check for a terminalogical dispute, so, from my Apple Dictionary:

"cruelty |ˈkroōəltē|
noun ( pl. -ties)
callous indifference to or pleasure in causing pain and suffering : he has treated her with extreme cruelty.
• behavior that causes pain or suffering to a person or animal : we can't stand cruelty to animals | the cruelties of forced assimilation and genocide.
• Law behavior that causes physical or mental harm to another, esp. a spouse, whether intentionally or not.
ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French crualte, based on Latin crudelitas, from crudelis (see cruel)."

OK, if they are using the legal term (and I assume by the nature of the article that they are) then the act must only harm the spouse, and does not necessarily have to be directed at the spouse. For example, gambling away the couple's life savings and house might be considered an act of cruelty though the act is not directed at the spouse at all. My gambling example could also serve as an instance of the act occurring without the knowledge of the spouse - at least initially.

So in this case, the husband obviously wanted children and upon learning that his wife had terminated three pregnancies suffered mental anguish (or more likely anger at being gipped) and sued for divorce. Fair enough? Maybe, until we check out the flip side of this scenario.

The players are the same, we have a husband who wants children and a wife who does not. The wife becomes pregnant and due to a slight alteration in her situation cannot secretly terminate the pregnancy but must carry, bear and rear a child or children she does not want. Will she be able to sue for divorce due to mental cruelty? NO. Colour me surprised at the inequity.

Oh no! Don't be friends wiv da boyz!

This is primary school-yard logic from a journalist who I assume is at least old enough to vote.

Articles like this are only going to be taken seriously by the most vacant of women, and will barely blip on the radar of men who think of women as people rather than potential bedmates. Crushes can be dealt with and most of them pass, leaving rock solid friendships. The kind of emotional immaturity that results in a person only having close friendships with their own sex is unfortunate and curable. Articles like this do not help.

Expectations for GREAT Maternity Services Reform - National Day of Action - November 16th

Great Expectations- National Day of Action


The recent review of Maternity Services in Australia is an historical event. Not only is it numerically significant it heralds the presence of what is most important actual Government support for much needed maternity service reform.

The Rudd government has been forthcoming in their promise to review maternity services and to improve upon them. Health Minister Roxon has publicly challenged the current medically dominated system and highlighted the need and the opportunity for enhanced midwifery care.


The timing is such that a visible presence is now required to make a really powerful impression that reform is necessary, wanted and indeed expected from the Australian public.


We have chosen the 16th of November to be a National Day of Action to support and make known our Expectations for GREAT Maternity Services Reform.


Please consider gathering in your local community or in a central capital city location to cement the support that we the women, men and families of Australia give to reform of Maternity Care provision in Australia. A picnic, candlelit vigil, or walk for reform are some ideas for gatherings that could be utilised to draw media attention, educate, show support and celebrate the pending report and recommendations.



The winds of change are blowing and this presents an incredibly exciting and celebratory chapter for all who have worked at one time or another for reform.



For further information about events …


Please call Janie Nottingham 0359 748364 or Mobile 04206 20808

Email Janie.nottingham@gmail.com

Prostitution and Proposition K in San Fransisco

Legalising prostitution seems to be a no-brainer to me. Mainly because it increases the safety of the people who work in the industry. However, I'm painfully aware that I have not been exposed to all the arguments on the issue so I check stuff out when it crosses my path. I came across this on the University of California Feminist Legal Theory blog. It's interesting, as are the links out.

For those who care - my PhD research proposal.

It is my intention to further pursue issues arising from my honours thesis. I intend to investigate causal properties of qualia and their involvement in our ability to direct attention and explore the possibility that an iterated attention mechanism is a causal feature in the capacity for self awareness as experienced by human beings.

For my honours thesis I proposed a possible evolutionary trajectory for qualia that illustrated the importance of causal phenomenal qualia to the function of complex brains. I argued that qualia, via our senses, provide important information about our environment that are conducive to survival within it. To bolster the claim that qualia have causal properties, I used pain dissociation syndromes to illustrate that qualia we experience as one sensation are in fact made up of several modalities functioning in unison. This has implications for the view that some qualia are epiphenomenal and also the view that epiphenomenal qualia supervene upon brain function.

Possible avenues of further exploration include an assessment of Prinz’s latest work on attention and his defense of proxytype theory. I am certain that a study of Prinz, who recommends that: “We should seriously investigate the possibility that our cognitive resources are couched in codes that originated in the service of perception.” Will be vital to any further development of my thoughts on this matter. Also, recent studies of animal consciousness, such as those by Donald R Griffin, will aid the delineation of conscious and cognitive capacities, and hopefully point the way to a reduction to the capacity to pay attention.

Competing theories of perception will need to be given serious consideration as will the work of Chalmers, Michael Tye, Kim, Levine, Robinson, Strawson, Horgan and Tienson and others all of whom have something to say about the causal features of perceptual phenomena. Human medical examples that will aid the exploration include asognosias, attention deficits, and pathologies of perception particularly those resulting from stroke or other brain injury. I believe we learn most from brains that malfunction and new technologies such as fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) offer unprecedented insight into these pathologies.

My approach is both physicalist and empiricist. My scientific background in biochemistry makes me ideally placed to take advantage of any opportunities for cross-disciplinary investigation that may arise during my thesis.

*sigh* It's never, ever good enough.

The cure to sentimentality when it comes to killing rats.

Today was looking to be gloriously productive. Toddler napping, 11yo about to go to his friend's for a swim, me about to sit down and fill out my PhD application in the peace and quiet.

Only, when I reached up to the tippety-top of our one cupboard to retrieve the swimming gear that had been lying dormant since last season I was treated to an avalanche of something I thought were little black beads. In my face, in my hair, down my shirt. I vaguely wondered why I'd stored craft stuff up there instead of with the crafty stuff and took a closer look. Rat droppings. There must have been thousands. There are no words for how ill I felt. I'd literally been dumped on. 11yo thought it was hilarious of course. As usual Mummy is glad to be of comic service - not. *grump*

I've known that we've had vermin for a while. They sneak into the kitchen and eat left over dog food, provide snuffly chasey entertainment for the dog at night and we hear them chasing each other in the roof and walls. But since they were not actually interfering with anything of ours, e.g. food. I have left them alone. (My husband sees this as 100% my problem just in case any of you were wondering...) But now that they are nesting in the linen cupboard and have chosen the crib cover I made for 2yo for a nest, chewing up the cot sheet that both 11yo and 2yo used as babies to line said nest, they have got to go. Nice Mummy has just been replaced by a rattucidal killing machine. Only...

I have a problem with killing rats. Not mice, or cockroaches, or venomous spiders, just rats. When we had our mouse invasion during the drought and they were eating anything not sealed in metal or glass I was happy to kill the little fuckers. It was a them or us thing. They contaminated our food supply, catching and relocating was not an option, therefore they had to die. It was during my mouse killing spree I found that poison was not a viable solution for us as they crawl away to die where you can't find them, produce unsavoury smells, and breed flies. So, I used traps, and when the traps didn't kill them I drowned them.

The trouble with using this method for rats, is that traps don't always kill them first go and then you are responsible for hours of suffering until you come along and finish the job. And rats, in the degrees of sentience scale, are way more sentient than mice. Rats can count to five, they are social creatures who pass on knowledge inter-generationally. They have been known to demonstrate emotional attachment. Leaving a creature like that in a trap for hours might just be beyond me :-(

(Oh, and for the anti-choice trolls who lurk and occasionally post here: Yes, I do think a rat has a stronger claim to sentience than a a 24 week old human foetus. Please go find yourselves a fetid dingo's kidney and choke on it. I'm not in the mood for you.)

But then again, maybe I should just remember how it felt to be dumped on by several generations of ratties before I get too sentimental. That and the fact that I now have to wash the entire contents of my linen cupboard and line the thing with steel wool wherever they are getting in.

So much for PhD application! Grrrr! Ah! Now I've found the anger. Off to Traps-R-Us for a little retail therapy....

40 days for Life and the consequences of Abortion Free States

This blogger, who wrote an article on the success or otherwise of the 40 Days for Life campaign, forgets a few key points.

The first is that abortion clinics have not been closing their doors due to lack of business, they have been closing their doors due to government legislation created by anti-choice pollies "for the health and safety of women" making it impossible for them to operate legally. Abortion clinics in the US have closed because they could not afford to widen their doors by the extra 2 inches required by the new laws. Hmmm. Abortion providers are dripping with money from their ill gotten gains, yet cannot afford a few renovations to keep their goose laying its golden eggs? Give me a break. Anyway, closures had less to do with lack of demand from women and more to do with impossible government demands. 40 days for life is giving itself a tad more credit than is due.

I wonder what will happen to the maternal death rates if the anti-choice dream of having abortion free states is realised? Middle class whiteys will be fine, they'll pay some obgyn to do it in secret. Its the poor women with nowhere to go that I worry about.

I want this book.

I know, I'm a bad blogger. I'm having a rest now that the decriminalisation legislation has been passed. It left me feeling both elated and deflated if that's possible.

But this issue will not go away. The religious right component of the anti-choice movement believe that they only lose if they give up. So they will not give up. We will be hearing from them again.

What can we do in the meantime? Reducing the stigma associated with abortion would be a start. Apparently this book is an excellent start. I want. I really like the picture on the cover. The emphasis is on the women and the choice. We remain women, people, dignified autonomous agents, no matter what we decide to do with our wombs.

Abortion Reform Bill passed. How to thank your MLCs

It seems that despite a few amendment hurdles women will now be able to exercise some control over when they use their precious power to make people without the threat of criminal prosecution. Am I happy? You betcha.

However, the MPs who voted for decriminalisation are probably still receiving hate mail as I write this.

Please help redress the balance and thank them. It's just one word, in one email (if you cut and past the long address I have provided below).

Here are the MLCs who voted for the bill:

Greg Barber, Greens
Candy Broad, Labor
Andrea Coote, Liberal
Kaye Darveniza, Labor
David Davis, Liberal
Philip Davis, Liberal
Khalil Eideh, Labor
Peter Hall, Nationals
Colleen Hartland, Greens
Gavin Jennings, Labor
David Koch, Liberal
Shaun Leane, Labor
Wendy Lovell, Liberal
Justin Madden, Labor
Jenny Mikakos, Labor
Martin Pakula, Labor
Sue Pennicuik, Greens
Jaala Pulford, Labor
Johan Scheffer, Labor
Brian Tee, Labor
Evan Thornley, Labor
Gayle Tierney, Labor
Matthew Viney, Labor

...and here is something you can cut and paste into the "To:" field of your mail program, it works for apple mail, and I imagine it will work for most mail programs:

greg.barber@parliament.vic.gov.au, candy.broad@parliament.vic.gov.au,andrea.coote@parliament.vic.gov.au, kaye.darveniza@parliament.vic.gov.au, david.davis@parliament.vic.gov.au, philip.davis@parliament.vic.gov.au, khalil.eideh@parliament.vic.gov.au, peter.hall@parliament.vic.gov.au, colleen.hartland@parliament.vic.gov.au, gavin.jennings@parliament.vic.gov.au, david.koch@parliament.vic.gov.au, shaun.leane@parliament.vic.gov.au, wendy.lovell@parliament.vic.gov.au, justin.madden@parliament.vic.gov.au, jenny.mikakos@parliament.vic.gov.au, martin.pakula@parliament.vic.gov.au, sue.pennicuik@parliament.vic.gov.au, jaala.pulford@parliament.vic.gov.au, johan.scheffer@parliament.vic.gov.au, brian.tee@parliament.vic.gov.au, evan.thornley@parliament.vic.gov.au, evan.thornley@parliament.vic.gov.au, matthew.viney@parliament.vic.gov.au

Finally, here is my letter:

Dear Members of the Legislative Council,

I wish to convey my heartfelt thanks for your support of the decriminalisation of abortion. Especially those who voted for it despite having personal reservations, you are true representatives of the people.

Thank you for trusting me, and women like me with this decision.

Thank you for contribution to removing the legislation that would, in the wrong hands, be used to compromise our autonomy and bodily integrity.

A very warm thank you to all of you.

Kind regards,

Update from Colleen Hartland (Wednesday afternoon)

A further update from Colleen Hartland MLC. I'm so grateful for these summaries! I read Shaun Leane's speech today and almost wept with relief. The man injected some reason, sanity and compassion into what has, at times, been a debate where certain blokes have laid bare their misogyny. Surely women represent half of their electorates? I wonder if any women are regretting their vote for Bernie Finn?

As for the delay tactics being used by the anti-choice brigade... can anyone say: "Abuse of Process"?


Dear all,

Nineteen MPs have now spoken, of which eleven have indicated that they will vote for the Abortion Law Reform Bill at second reading.

When I sent my last email to this group*, at about 6.30pm yesterday, I said that Bernie Finn (Libs) had been speaking for over an hour. He kept speaking after the dinner break, and hadn't finished at 10pm when the house adjourned. He started again this morning and kept talking, give or take lunch and question time, until 2.45pm this afternoon. I'm not entirely sure he stopped when we all went home overnight.

Mr Kavanaugh (DLP) is now speaking. So far it sounds like a repeat of Mr Finn's arguments, but with a softer voice. He has anticipated that he will speak for some time.

It's as though the anti-choice advocates have realised that they can't win the argument on legal or moral grounds, and instead they're trying to starve us out.

Mr Finn's arguments, while lengthy, were predictable, so his speech gave me over five hours to reflect and achieve perspective on the contributions so far.

One of the clearest truths, from all the speakers, including some of the anti choice speakers, is that this Bill won't change the number of abortions carried out in Victoria. All it will do is improve safety for the women and the medical practitioners. Nothing else will change if it passes.

Women still wouldn't make their decision in a vacuum. They still have to deal with society. I nearly cheered when Shaune Leane (ALP) suggested that the 2,000 people who have lobbied him against abortion, should instead send protest notes to their local media outlet when it vilifies single mothers in his extraordinary speech yesterday.

Jenny Mikakos (ALP) made an argument for practicing Christians such as herself, who would never choose abortion themselves, to nevertheless support the Bill in her speech on Tuesday. Jaala Pulford (ALP) said this afternoon that, worldwide, the abortion rate has no correlation to the legality of abortion, but instead to the place of women in society.

Ironically, some anti-choice advocates are frightened that this Bill will give too many rights to women, when it is an increase in women's rights that will decrease the number of abortions.

Mr Theophanous (ALP) was the first speaker this afternoon to refer directly to proposed amendments, which he has circulated. The amendments relate to abortion after 24 weeks gestation. He argues that some of a woman's reasons for abortion have more validity than others, and his proposed amendments reflect this view. My Greens colleagues and I will vote against them.

There will be up to 20 more speakers before we reach the first vote, which is the vote at the end of "second reading". My best guess is that the vote will take place tomorrow morning, after which we will start debating proposed amendments.

Usually we don't sit on Fridays. We've only done it once since I was elected. I think we should sit every day until the debate is concluded. I don't think that delay tactics should be rewarded, when the result would be to leave the public hanging on a decision by 40 members of parliament. Particularly when I think the decision should belong to each individual woman.

Regards, Colleen

* This email is going to about 500 people who have contacted me to indicate their support for a woman's right to choose, or their support of this legislation. I am sending updates from Parliament, while the Bill is being debated.

Colleen Hartland MLC

Western Metropolitan Region


E: colleen.hartland@parliament.vic.gov.au

P: 9689 6373

W: www.electedgreensvictoria.org.au

I’m now on Facebook – click here.

Update from Colleen Hartland MLC

Another email from Colleen Hartland MLC. I'd love to blog but I can't do much except bite my nails and watch.

Dear all,

The Abortion Law Reform Bill debate adjourned at 10pm last night, and started again this afternoon, after debate finished on a Liberal party motion on another topic.

We have now heard from 16 MPs, of which ten have indicated they will vote in favour of the Bill at "Second Reading" - that is, they support the Bill in principle, and will let it progress to the next debate stage, which is called the "committee" stage.

Today's debate has been fascinating. I recommend anyone following the debate via Hansard to read the extraordinary speech by Shaun Leane (ALP) when it is published overnight. It joins speeches by Andrea Coote (Libs) and Jenny Mikakos (ALP) yesterday, which I thought were outstanding.

There are still about a dozen MPs on the speaking list tonight. Yesterday they spoke for an average 30 minutes each (I only spoke for about ten minutes), so don't expect a result any time soon. As I write this, Bernie Finn (Libs) has been speaking for about an hour, and for the first time I have left the chamber.

I was surprised and delighted to receive brief messages from so many of you yesteday evening, including people who listened to my speech on the live broadcast, or read it on the website. My staff forwarded me some of the messages in Parliament, and they gave me a strong feeling of being part of a supportive, caring community during an exhausting sitting week.

These updates are going to about 500 people who asked me to vote for a woman's right to choose. I was already pro-choice, but you have given me the courage to stand up and speak with your strength and support. This included my very difficult decision to go public about having had an abortion. I am sure that brief, warm supportive emails to other pro-choice MPs would also be appreciated.

You may have heard that pro-choice MPs are receiving abusive emails after speaking. I have been inundated with those emails, each one nastier than the last. If the anti-choice brigade ever needed to convince us that they are abusive, misogynist bullies who want to impose their choices on others, they have achieved that aim, with bells on! Mind you, yesterday one email spat "the BRAZEN nerve of you", and I'm taking that as a compliment.

I expect we will sit later tonight than last night, because of the delay in starting the debate. I will send a message with the results of the "second reading" vote, if we get there.

Colleen Hartland MLC

Western Metropolitan Region



E: colleen.hartland@parliament.vic.gov.au

P: 9689 6373

W: www.electedgreensvictoria.org.au

I’m now on Facebook – click here.

Email from Colleen Hartland MLC

Colleen Hartland sent this email to people who wrote to her regarding decriminalisation of abortion. I have permission to reprint it here.

Dear all,

I am writing to you with an update on the debate in Parliament on the Abortion Law Reform Bill, because you sent me an email or letter in support of a woman's right to choose.

The debate started a few hours ago. Seven MPs including myself have given their main speeches on the legislation.

Six of those seven MPs (including myself) have indicated that they will support the Bill at 'second reading'.* However, the Bill is still a long way from passing. It will be a very close vote, and there are already amendments circulating that, if passed, would threaten the integrity of the Bill.

Some of the speeches have been inspiring and unexpected. Others have been careful and restrained. All have been respectful.

I have placed a copy of my own speech notes onto my website - click here. It was both a proud and humbling experience to speak on behalf of women's rights in parliament. I dedicated the speech to women who had died or were maimed by backyard abortion, and spoke about a range of issues, including the steps that need to be taken to give women more control, and decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies. I challenged the anti-choice MPs to support initiatives from contraception and sex education through to sole parents benefits.

It's been a great day for women's rights. I've really enjoyed working wtih pro-choice MPs from different political parties, including people I wouldn't agree with on many other issues!

Parliament will resume at 8.30pm tonight and I expect that we will sit until very late.

The debate on this Bill will most likely continue tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon, then again on Thursday morning. It's possible we will sit on Friday and even Saturday to complete the debate.

You can listen to parliament via a live broadcast - click here and choose "Legislative Council" (ie the "red" chamber!). You can also attend and listen (quietly) in the public gallery, which is always open when parliament is sitting, no matter how late.

I won't be able to answer any queries while Parliament is sitting, but please contact my office on 9689 6373 if you have any urgent enquiries.
Colleen Hartland MLC

Western Metropolitan Region



E: colleen.hartland@parliament.vic.gov.au

P: 9689 6373

W: www.electedgreensvictoria.org.au

I’m now on Facebook – click here.

* That is, they support the Bill in principle, and will vote for it to proceed to the "committee" stage, when individual clauses and any proposed amendments will be debated in greater detail, and voted on separately.

To my lovely work mates.

Hmmm. From the logs it looks like someone from work has been checking this blog out.



There are three things my lovely work mates should know.

a) I am not my blog, my blog is not me.

My blog is a slice of my ego, it is not necessarily the nicest portion either. This blog is where I get things off my chest. Do not confuse ventings here with my meat-space self.

b) There are things I post here about my life outside work that you may regret knowing.

Some things you can't "unread" - proceed with caution.

c) I am actually happy to answer questions in meat-space, though you may be disappointed with the responses I give there!

Cheers peeps :-) See you for coffee.

Ani Difranco - Tiptoe

It's better when she says it:

tiptoeing through the used condoms
strewn on the piers
off the west side highway
sunset behind the skyline of jersey
walking towards the water
with a fetus holding court in my gut
my body highjacked
my tits swollen and sore
the river has more colors at sunset than my sock drawer ever dreamed of

I could wake up screaming sometimes
but I don't

I could step off the end of this pier
but I've got shit to do
I've an appointment on tuesday to shed
uninvited blood and tissue
I'll miss you
I say to the river
to the water
to the son or daughter I thought better of

I could fall in love with jersey at sunset
but I leave
the view
to the rats
and tiptoe back

Tell The Truth are on TV now

Thanks to a heads up from a reader I discover that Tell the Truth are televising their misinformation.

At ten to twelve this morning channel nine aired an add from the Tell the Truth Coalition.

You can view it here. Click on the "Life" TV commercial. Note that there are NO women pictured. Even when the voice over, full of syrupy concern, says that the new laws will not protect women, the picture is of a pregnant belly hugged by a child. The woman, as usual, is portrayed as an incubator (if she could be said to be portrayed at all). Also note that the written component of the add is from the viewpoint of the foetus: "My heart, my limbs..". As usual, the foetus is portrayed as something that is capable of a viewpoint. The sentient cows most of us consume regularly have viewpoints, a foetus is not capable of a viewpoint until months after birth, that is, after it has become a baby. Also note the church organ background music (I thought of dracula, anyone else?)



Seen it? Let's see what ol' Ronny would have you believe this time. (I'm sorry if this is a bit rough, it's late...)

"3 Weeks My heart is beating."

The general consensus of my texts (below) is that it begins to beat at four weeks. The heart begins to develop at three weeks.

"7 weeks I have fingerprints."

No, no and no no no. Finger and foot prints begin forming at week 16 according to Visible Embryo. According to MedlinePlus they are not forming until week 24. They are not set in stone until much later. At 7 weeks PADS form on the hands. These are bumps that eventually become fingerprints, but fingerprints they are not indeedy. No no no no no.

"12 weeks My limbs and organs have formed."

Not this again... here, I'll just cut and paste from the last time with a few edits...

As I am doing a thesis on foetal pain I knew immediately that this is patently untrue. For example, skin keratinisation (where the skin becomes more like skin on a full term baby) does not begin until week 16, thalamocortical structures in the brain (important connections for pain perception) are not laid down until 26 weeks, 22 at the very earliest. Scalp hair patterning begins at 16 weeks, bone formation (calcification of bones) begins at week 14. Limbs do not reach their final relative proportions until week 17, and the uterus in females is not complete until week 18. So, the skeletal structure is yet to ossify (or become hard bones), the foetus might have nerves but the central nervous system has barely begun to resemble that of a full term baby. The 12 week old foetus does not have fingernails, hair, certain reproductive organs, skin as we know it, functioning lungs…. … I could go on, but I think I have made my point. This sentence is, again, incorrect and emotive. The idea is to paint a picture of a miniature fully formed baby at 12 weeks. If it were truly equivalent to a baby, we could put it in a pram and walk it around the block.

"I am a human being."

This can be a tricky one. A foetus is human and alive, no doubt about either. (Yey! They got something right!) However, conscious? Nope. Sentient? Not until at least week 26. Self aware with desires and interests? Not until some months after birth. It is my position that a human being in the foetal state should not have rights that trump the rights of a human being in the adult state. These rights include the right to refuse to lend your body to save the life of another. For example, it is possible for most of us to live with only one kidney. Yet we do not make our citizens hand over their second kidneys in order to save another citizen's life. In our society we get to choose whether or not to use our bodies to help other people to live. Women must be able to choose whether or not they will use their bodies to turn a potential human life into a fully fledged human life.

"I need your protection."

Now this last one made me spit out my rather yummy Red Back beer. What do they think happens to unwanted babies? What do they think would happen to 30,000 extra unwanted babies in Victoria per year? There are plenty of CHILDREN out there already who need protection from their own PARENTS (350,000 reports of child abuse in Australia per year for those who did not watch Andrew Denton...). Anti-Choicers want to make more of these miserable beings? Argh! I have no more words...

Now for the dialogue:

"Human life is precious."

Uhuh. It's weird that given the preciousness of human life we're so keen to keep a thriving military and tolerate a third world in our own back yard. Next?

"Yet the Victorian Government is considering removing all legal protection for children until the moment of birth."

Note the use of the word "children" and the assumption, that I mentioned in a previous post, that women are satanic harpies who will willy nilly demand abortions the moment they go into labour. Also the assumption that the current situation is protective.

"This will not help protect children..."

Okeee, I didn't think it was supposed to. Or did I miss something? Actually, I've just realised that freely available abortion does protect children. It protects them from poverty, overcrowding, and the pain of being blamed for the unhappiness of their parents and consequently being abused or killed.

"...or women."

Notice that we're an afterthought?

"Say NO to legalising abortion in Victoria."

*sigh* because keeping it illegal was doing a great job of protecting the children wasn't it?

I've had enough. Sorry peeps, it's 1am and hours past my bedtime. This post will probably end up being edited for clarity tomorrow... refs below.





An atlas of human prenatal developmental mechanics : anatomy and staging, by Jan E. Jirásek, London : Taylor & Francis, c2004
The developing human : clinically oriented embryology, by Keith L. Moore, T.V.N. Persaud. 7th ed, Philadelphia, Saunders, c2003.